Category: Meeting Minutes

February 2nd and March 2nd meeting minutes, plus other news

Congratulations to Robert Andrews, our club president, for obtained a new dream job working forInsitu Inc. making parts for their new UAV which is called the Flexrotor. Robert is doing composite work in carbon fiber for that UAV. It has a very unique and interesting design which gives it the major advantage of having both a long range plus a vertical takeoff and landing without the need for any cumbersome launch or recovery equipment. The company is based in White Salmon Washington so unfortunately Robert will be moving there soon and we won’t get to see him all that often anymore. Robert said he is willing to continue serving as President for our club and the club decided that it’s OK and wants to keep him as our president so continue consulting him about club matters via phone or email. He said a local club in the area has a very nice RC airfield very close to where he will be moving.

Dennis Wright is a new club member who joined our club in February. Dennis is from the Portland area and is also a member and officer in the OMAS club in Banks, Oregon. He came to fly with us and discovered that our field is a good place to fly his quarter scale planes. We had a good time flying with him and look forward to seeing him again. Walter Swanson is another new club member who is in the process of joining. Walter is a retired Navy veteran and is a long time RC flyer. He offered to help us with some of the chores at the airfield which is very much appreciated. Steven Durham is our newest club member. He joined in mid-March. Pete has met Steven but I have not talked with him yet so I can’t say much about him other than he lives in Lincoln City. Welcome to the club Dennis, Walter and Steven.

Matt Bingenheimer said he reserved a table at the McMinnville RC Swap Meet on March 14th and offered to let NCRCM club members sell their stuff at his table with him. Matt say’s he still has room in his Excursion if anyone wants a ride. his number is 503-812-6238.

Several people renewed memberships in February so the club’s financial situation is starting to look fine again. Wow, this spring has been yielding nice sunny flying days, one right after another, I hope it keeps up.

January 5th meeting minutes

Click image for event poster and details.

The meeting started at 7:00 pm and was attended by seven members. Several of us renewed our memberships for 2015 and paid dues at the start of the meeting. Pete donated some money toward the cost of Christmas gifts. Pete is sort of like our Santa, he bought some nice gifts and delivered them to the field owner and farm resident who graciously allow us to fly on their property. Robert Munsell Sr. resigned his club presidency. He did a good job as President. Hopefully he will continue doing a great job as our chief maintenance engineer keeping the mowers and everything in working order. The club voted Rob Andrews to be our newest club president. Welcome and thanks for taking on that role Rob. If you want to talk to Rob about RC issues or about the club his phone number is 503-965-2233 . I described the new runway surface area (see details in previous post). A financial report was given which revealed that (including recent 2015 dues) we will start out the new year with somewhat less money than we started last year, but we still should be able to cover our normal expenses in 2015 because expenses should be significantly lower in the coming year as well. Members can view the details of the club’s finances by clicking on the CLUB DOCS icon at the top of this page. Your password is in the lower left corner of your membership card. Rob brought in his new JR 450 3D helicopter for show-and-tell. It was quite a well built machine. Rob said the model was a good price and it floats effortlessly with less cells that the Align version that he previously owned. Rob talked about his amazing adventure while piloting an aerial camera platform over the Snake River in Eastern Oregon for the filming of a documentary being produced by a major film company. The scenes are focused on the bridge which stands high over the river. Steep canyon walls covered in snow and ice made access to the river difficult so they had to canoe up the river to get in position under the bridge. They also had to wait for just the right snow cover and sky conditions so that the scenes would match previously filmed scenes. Hopefully Rob will play some of his footage for us at an upcoming club meeting. Bill brought his new Cub for show-and-tell. It was the one reviewed in an AMA article a couple months back and it has the electronic flight stabilization feature. It looked very nice. I don’t think he had flow it yet. Members shared stories of recent flying misfortunes, things we that we have all experienced that we could laugh over. The meeting was adjourned about 8:30 pm.

Nov 3rd Meeting Minutes

About seven members were present. Bill’s wife sent tasty donuts to the meeting. We discussed plywood delamination on the two new table tops. It was noted that we no longer have a convenient place for dumping the toilet and the tail lights on the toilet trailer no longer work. Matt contacted Eric who said he can arrange for dumping it at the city facility. Gary offered to get a portable tail light kit for the trailer. Bob talked about mower repairs and brought up that we need to check oil correctly on the mowers so we don’t overfill them. He was reimbursed $31 for mower parts. We decided to discontinue holding the annual drawing for free dues because the drawing was not really bringing more members in to the meetings and the club’s revenues have declined somewhat over the last few years. We talked some more about making a runway surface for the smaller planes. We did not yet have much info on costs, feasibility, materials, availability, installation methods, etc. so could not pursue that topic in much depth. Pete said he would contact Ron and work with him on getting more project details. Ron had previously mentioned that he thought he might be able to get a leftover roll of dryer felt from the Astoria club. Rob brought in his new scratch built flying wing for show and tell and it looked like a well thought-out design.

Dec 1st Meeting Minutes

Gary has two new planes.

About 5 members were present. Bob said he and Rob have replaced the tension cables on the shed door. Bob brought his glider in for some help with arming the ESC. We OK’d expenditures for Christmas gifts for Norm (site owner)and Greg ( farm resident). Pete had offered to purchase the gifts and present them again this year. Bob said he will resign the Presidency in January. Side note:We should try to vote the new President into office prior to the renewal of the club’s charter with the AMA because they will ask for the names of club members and officers. The AMA charter renewal form will arrive soon and is due by early March I believe. Bill received a new miniature quad-copter from Gary at the meeting and it was flow about the room. It was surprisingly fast, agile and stable for something that is only a couple inches wide. Matt brought in a giant servo motor to show us. It’s for his new milling machine. The felt like it weighed 15 lbs. and has something like 1100 inch lbs. of torque, definitely too much for a park flyer, maybe a 747.

New Planes

This is Eric’s new electric pattern plane. _________________________ click to expand photo

Rain and high priority chores tried to keep me at home over the last couple of months but I was able to go to the airfield a couple times and I saw several new planes that people brought out. Rob now has Steve’s 35% Pilot-brand Yak which was originally Eric’s plane. He can fly it to its full potential. Eric put together a high-end electric pattern plane. It flies very precise and contains nothing but top-shelf components of course. Gary brought out a couple new electrics that looked very fun to fly. The blue one is a small, fast, agile, and stabilized 3-D acrobat. It flies like a larger plane. His yellow plane is super light weight so it flips, rolls, and spins while it is gently floating along a few feet off the ground. Bob finished his Spirit 100 sailplane. He has not flow it as of yet but it is a very nice looking build. You can click on the thumbnails of the photos in this post to expand the pictures to a larger size.

New Runway Surface

New runway surface for small-wheel takeoffs

We installed a small takeoff runway with a smooth surface so that planes having small wheels can get moving without tipping forward onto the prop. The new runway surfacing is 6 feet wide by 32 feet long and is made out of 3/4 inch thick rubber mats. The mats are identical to the one that we use for a helicopter pad. Other than cost, the matting seems to make a perfect runway surface . Normally 6’x4′ matts are $35 each but all seven of these only cost us $100, or about $14 each. I got them from a Craigslist ad. I was afraid that this offer would no longer be available if I waited to discuss it at the next meeting, so I checked with Pete who was coordinating the runway surfacing project and learned that the plan for getting dryer felt from the Astoria club had fallen through and it was not available. Pete said he thought the mats were a good buy, so I got them. Bob and I installed them the next day. The mats were simple to put down and will be easy to move or dispose if the need ever arises. I think this new runway is going to be good because the mat that we had used as a helicopter pad over the last few years has proven to be indestructible, could not blow away, didn’t rot from the sun or the moisture and retained its asphalt-like appearance. It could be mowed over, elk stomped, driven over, rolled over. It could handle violent prop strikes and maybe even a straight-in-smoking-hole plane crash. Most importantly, it did not cause any extra maintenance work or inconvenience mowing. The new runway surface shouldn’t interfere with grass landing of larger planes given its current location close to the pilot station. The biggest drawback is it’s small length and width. Completing a full landing on it may not be in the cards all that often, but I did land on it on my very first attempt with my slow park flyer model, and I had a lot of fun doing multiple touch-N-goes on it. We should probably keep an eye out for more mats at bargain prices to make the area larger, or we could also continue to investigate the practicality of other runway options as well.

Upcoming vote for president.

We will be voting for a new club president during one of the next few meetings because Bob said he will resign in January. The vote is likely to be held on Jan 5th. If you want to nominate yourself or someone else let us know.

Renew your 2015 club memberships starting in January, due by April

Don’t forget to renew your membership. Renewal starts January 1st. We have had a slight drop in revenue over the last couple of years so the club really needs your dues payment to keep us going. Please help us by mailing in your renewal or bringing it to a meeting.

October 6th Meeting Minutes

Four members attended the meeting: Bob, Stuart, Matt, Bill and Pete as well as two new guests, Huston and Michael.

The minutes were read and the financial report was given. We expended funds in Sept for 5 gallons of mower gas and four gallons of RV toilet antifreeze. A bill for some mower parts was presented at the meeting. No income was received last month.

New business topics included repair of a rip in the canopy and renewal of our web hosting service. Matt said he can get patching material for the canopy. Someone will need to sew the patch on prior to erection of the canopy next summer. Members approved expending funds for three more years of web hosting fees. We no longer get bonus signup rates so the fee is now the regular rate of $72 per year.

Two guests attended the meeting. Huston and Michael, father and son, want to become members and fly with us. Huston flew RC planes several years ago and might be a little rusty. He still has an RC model. Michael has a “drone” model that he currently flies. Welcome to the club guys.

New planes

Robert, Stan, Pete and Gary all brought out new models last month. Gary’s is a small stabilized 3D acrobatic flyer only about 10″ wingspan but it performs like a big one. Pete’s is a stabilized mid-size Sukhoi that had an issue with the elevator so couldn’t be flown. It looks like it will be a good performer. Stan’s is a high performance biplane that he flew very well. Robert’s model is a custom scratch build flying wing built for stable user friendly flights, crashworthiness, and landing in adverse locations.

Winter is coming

Fall weather has arrived. The grass greened up almost overnight after the fall rains arrived. It looks nice however it will grow fast until the weather gets cold and it might occasionally get a little tall due to the limited number of days dry enough for mowing and the completion from other chores and activities demanding attention this time of year. The toilet was winterized. We will maintain only a couple gallons of the antifreeze solution in the water reservoir over winter so try to conserve antifreeze when flushing.

Sept 7 meeting minutes

Bob, Matt, Bill, Gary, Rob, and Stuart attended. No old business carried over.

Stuart gave the financial report which shows that we are holding steady with plenty of savings to cover operating expenses for the next season, assuming we don’t have some surprise abnormal expense.

Matt gave a safety report and mentioned that hot dry weather dry has created extreme wildfire danger conditions. He said that a recent RC related fire in the valley burned a utility pole which was extinguished by their fire department. Gary and Rob described how a helicopter they were working on started up unexpectedly at full speed due to accidentally reversing the wrong radio channel. Fortunately the model was running with negative pitch so it stayed pinned to the ground long enough for Rob to correct that channel so the motor could be stopped.

Matt talked about a pen plotter that he recently acquired and said he can print off vector file versions of downloaded airplane designs for us. He may mount a laser cutter or vinyl cutter to it someday as well.

Stuart brought up field maintenance issues. There is a pack rat making a mess in the storage shed (update: He waged a tough and valiant battle but has finally been evicted). The trailer lights on the portable outhouse stopped working, we talked about getting a set of detachable trailer lights for it. One of the overhead door cables broke and will need to be repaired soon before the other one gives out. Ron suggested (outside of the meeting) that we look into putting down some geotec fabric. He said he will gather some info on it and forward the details to me so we can discuss it at the upcoming Oct 6 club meeting.

2014 Fun Fly Event

This year’s fun fly event was well attended by over thirty five people. We were very lucky to get Brian and Patrick of Roswell Flight Test Crew to participate at this years event. They are busy with events all around the country this time of year and somehow we caught them with the single date that they had open on their calendar. If you look on page 97 of the most recent (Sept.) issue of AMA’s magazine, Model Aviation, you will see an article about the Roswell Flight Test Crew. They gave us demonstrations of the capabilities of their drone equipment, answered lots of questions and gave assistance and advice about drone setup to the event’s drone enthusiast attendees. We really appreciate their help making this an enjoyable event.

Civil Air Patrol Cadets from all over Western Oregon were in Tillamook on that weekend and they also came to the event. They got a special presentation from Brian and Patrick. We wanted to give the Cadets hands-on trainer flights with their own RC model that they brought to the event. Unfortunately, a radio transmitter problem could not be ironed out in time to make that happen.

The weather was sunny and warm with calm wind and a perfect day for flying. Matt and Gary cooked up a bunch of bratwursts, hot dogs and hamburgers. Everyone got an excellent lunch without it costing much thanks to people bringing potluck dishes, donating food items, and donating money. Also, thanks to those who donated canopies, grills, and helped set things up.

We enjoyed lots of flights of a variety of aircraft, with no crashes this year, just a couple of “awkward” landings.

NCRCM Meeting Minutes August 4, 2014

The meeting was held at the airfield at 6:00 pm. Pete, Stuart, Gary, Rob, Matt and Bill were there. We spent a couple hours repairing things and sprucing things up. Gary replaced the door on our portable toilet. The old chip-board door was barely hanging by a thread. The new door is very nice. It’s like a Cadillac of toilet doors. We set up the shade canopy next to the storage shed with a couple tables under it. A setup table was painted. We divvied up remaining tasks for the fun fly. A couple people got in an evening flight after the meeting was adjourned.

Most Federal rules are published with just minor changes resulting from the public comments. Hopefully that is not the case here. Federal rules generally won’t go into effect for at least 30 days following the closure of the comment period and the publishing. Most often the agency gives everyone plenty of additional time to come into compliance, however the FAA has already been accused of foot dragging on the integration of commercial UAV’s into the national airspace, so they may be under pressure to take the RC reigns fairly soon. It is most likely too late for the AMA to ask Congress to rewrite the underlying law that this agency is clearly misinterpreting. Congress could threaten the FAA’s budget to get it to stop over-reaching, provided lawmakers are sympathetic to the RC hobby. A more likely option is for the courts to over-rule the FAA’s erroneous interpretation of the law, and indeed the AMA filed for courts intervention at the end of August. Hopefully judges will side with the AMA.

It’s hard to say if the FAA’s new RC rules would be strictly enforced. It seems to me that the FAA wants all RC activity to be potentially illegal by subjecting it to a catch-22 of general aviation rules, but then would only occasionally prosecute on a case-by-case basis after someone becomes alarmed or annoyed and complains or brings it to the attention of the FAA. It’s an uncomfortable position for us to be in, but it is not an unusual way to regulate. Almost everyone goes around inadvertently violating plenty of poorly-defined, vague, obscure, obsolete, or ignored rules that are still on the books, all the time, even though they may have never-ever dared to intentionally remove the warning tag off of a pillow or mattress.

We reviewed plans for the August fun fly, discussed the FAA regulation controversy, talked about peoples progress and successes with new models, crashes and failures with old models. We decided to hold the next August 4th meeting at the airfield at 6:00PM so that members can help prepare the airfield for the fun fly following the meeting. Pete will email a reminder notice to everyone about the changed meeting location and time.

Dave Grigg with his fun flyer on a nice sunny day in April. The plane performed very well. The OO1 that you see on his wing is Dave’s actual verified AMA number . It’s an interesting story on why he has such a low AMA number.

May 5th Club Meeting

We discussed having a 2014 fun fly event but didn’t come up with a date or any details so will continue that topic at our next June 2nd meeting. Bring your ideas to the meeting. Matt gave us a tour of his recently revamped multi-copter with a quite unique radio setup. Gary brought his “worlds smallest” production quad copter and demonstrated indoor flight with it. Its like a hummingbird.

New aircraft – Stan Ray got his new E-flight Carbon Z Cub. Here is a video of its maiden flight. It flies beautifully and lands very nicely even in choppy winds. Stan found that the Flap-Elevator mix settings are pretty sensitive because the cub did an abrupt nose down dive when he switching on a high percentage of mix. Luckily, Stan was testing it from a high altitude so he was able to recover it in time.

March 3rd club meeting minutes – Matt got a fire extinguisher for the airfield. Bob talked about cleaning up old stuff in the shed and in the culvert pipe. We will do the house cleaning some day soon. The McMinnville RC Swap Meet was discussed, Stan, Matt and Gary said they were planning to go. Our next meeting is on April 7th. We should probably talk about dates for our local RC event. There may be an important security topic to discus as well.

New event notices – The club received a couple invitations to nearby RC events. The 2014 McMinnville Fun Flyis on July 12th. A new annual event called Warbirds Over Oregon will be held July 19th in Turner Oregon by the Salem RC Pilots Association. The Fly-A-Ways RC Club announced a Scalemasters competition to be held in Banks on June 27-29. I forwarded those email invitations to members, let me know if you didn’t get them or if you want your address included or excluded in the club’s mailing list.

Cool video – I was impressed with the effort that went into this video which incudes a whole lot of FPV flight footage that is presented in an very entertaining way. It must have taken a lot of imagination, time, skill and effort to put it together.

We hope you remember to renew your 2014 membership and continue to support RC flying in the Tillamook Area. Quite a few members have renewed their 2014 AMA and NCRCM club memberships already. Club dues are the same as last year, $40. Your dues will help us meet our normal operating expenses and maintain the airfield again this year. (Click for more info on dues)

We are on the downhill side of winter now. Thankfully, the airfield made it through the worst of this year’s cold and wind without any problems. The month of January had a fair number of days with decent weather and I saw several people out flying. Paul brought out a new 1/4 scale biplane as well as a new glider. Both were beautifully done and looked great. Matt’s son, Raymond, brought out a delta wing pusher that cuts through the air like a rocket. It was probably approaching 100mph. Fun to watch. I almost strain a neck muscle trying to keep up with it. I recently witnessed a real LiPo battery fire for the first time. It was triggered by a somewhat moderate nose-in crash (not mine, thankfully). About a minute after the impact a huge dense cloud of smoke went up, soon followed by two more clouds from the two remaining cells that ignited sequentially, each about 1 minute apart. The smoke was too thick and ominous looking to get very close so there was nothing that could be done about it but just wait until it ran its course. A considerable amount of heat melted everything within the engine compartment but surprisingly caused very little or no flaming. The balsa structure was somewhat charred but did not really catch on fire. No pictures, sorry.

We held elections at the January meeting. Steve said he could not continue being President because he may be moving to Portland. We hate to see him go. Bob volunteered to take a turn in the role of President. No one else expressed interest in being elected to a club officer position. Bob was then nominated, seconded, voted and approved and is our new President. All other officer positions will remain the same, with Pete as Vice President, Matt as Safety officer, and Stuart as Treasurer/Secretary. Bob does not have an email address or text messaging but you can call him on his land-line phone at 503-842-5083 if you need to talk to him. Jon Nelson offered to take over the care and feeding of the Club’s Facebook page from Steve. He said he would give Steve a call about it.

The Tillamook Area was selected to be one of the FAA’s authorized UAV (drone) testing areas. The designation should have no impact on our recreational flying activities because the zone is located offshore and at higher altitudes. The club was contacted by the Port of Garibaldi in January asking for help with aerial filming of their dock reconstruction activity for historical documentation purposes. I forwarded the message to Gary because that type of thing is right up Gary’s alley. Gary was happy to help, took on the project, and got lots of photos, video and he said the weather was very cooperative. Rob Anderson described filming golf courses with a high end hexacopter setup with all the bells and whistles at our February meeting. It was a very interesting discussion.